Thoughts from the intersection of science, pseudoscience, and conflict.

If you read my post on Kathy Miller’s recent talk at the Answers in Science event, you’ll recall that the Texas Board of Education is currently reviewing science textbooks for statewide adoption. This is a very important process, as historically creationists have attempted to insert their stupid arguments against evolution into school educational standards and textbooks. Since Texas is the largest buyer of textbooks in the United States, it has a huge influence on what publishers will produce.
The Texas Freedom Network (TFN) has been watching this process very carefully. As creationists are known to be on the Textbook Review Committee, there have been serious concerns that the textbooks ultimately chosen (and used in Texas classrooms for the next decade) would contain creationist/intelligence design arguments (to put it into perspective, here’s an appalling example of an elementary school creationist textbook from Bob Jones University).

TFN hired a group of doctoral candidates from Texas universities to evaluate the textbooks under review by the Texas Board of Education for scientific accuracy. The good news is that every single one affirms the importance of the theory of evolution for explaining the origins and diversity of life on earth. All textbooks roundly reject the notion that this is a subject of controversy among the scientific community, and refute the arguments used by Intelligent Design proponents.

You can read the complete TFN report on the textbooks (along with an explanation of the textbook review process and a timeline of science censorship in Texas) here.

Congratulations to all pro-science activists in Texas! Have a victory trilobite!!! #standup4Science